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1
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CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE
"WATER MAY BE FREE, BUT BATHS ARE NOT!" PAULA SAYS
"After Jane had gone, Margie,"
continued Paula, "I began to undress
and make ready for bed.
"I am not going to describe to you
that hall bedroom up three flights of
stairs. I kept thinking to myself as
I spread my beautiful toilet articles
out on the rickety old bureau: 'I
had always thought the descriptions
of such rooms were all imagination
when I read them in stories, but here
I was right in one and when I
stretched myself on the bed it seem
ed to me that I never would be able
to adjust myself to its bumps and
hollows.
"I was tired I was lonely I was
discouraged I -was heartsick, Mar
gie, and all at once I found myself
sobbing and shaking with all the
piled-up misery and grief that fate
seemed dealing to me.
"I was alone in this great city, in
which not one soul except my little
acquaintance of the night before
knew that there was such a girl as
Paula Newton.
"Strange as that may seem, this
thought, instead of making me de
spair, seemed to give me courage. I
determined I'd win.
"I sat down on the side of the bed
and carefully counted my money. I
had just ?96. My room rent was
paid for a whole week. Surely I
could get something to do before that
was gone.
"I bathed as well as I could in a
bowl of cold water.
"Margie, I don't wonder that poor
people are not clean. Water may be
free, but to get enough of it heated
to take a bath sometimes takes more
energy than a tired girl has left after
her hard daily toil!
"I know that I have often tumbled
into bed when I should have bathed
my hot and tired body, and have tak
en the extra half hour sleep in the
morning instead of the bath that my
parched skin needed and you know
I was called the daintiest girl in the
school
"It is very different, however,
when you have someone to prepare
your tub in the perfect bathroom
and lay out towels and perfume and
scented soap, from taking a sponge
bath with a small bowl of water and
coarse soap and coarser towels.
"If, as someone has said, 'Cleanli
ness is next to godliness,' then it does
seem to me that some of these good
people who are always preaching
about keeping one's soul clean and
bright should pay a little more atten
tion to the bodies of humanity
"And then the food oh, Margie, I
hope you will never have to live on
the food I have had to eat Truly, I
have had to recourse to a handful of
dates, a few nutmeals and an apple,
because the person who cooked the
food at my cheap boarding house ab
solutely spoiled it.
"Isn't it queer that most of us take
so little care of this wonderful ma
chine we call our body. We seem al
most to take delight in abusing it in
every way possible, and then we arte
surprised when sometimes it rebels
and pays us back in our own coin.
"I shall never forget that first night
in that little hall bedroom and that
first breakfast in the smelly dining
room and yet the woman who kept
the house was a kindly souL She
did not know how to make the best
of what she had.
"I would not let myself get hope
less, however, and immediately after
breakfast I started out to find the
theatrical manager I knew."
(To Be Continued)
' o o
New York. Women prisoners in
Queens county jail have organized a
baseball team, but they don't wear
masks or chest protectors "because
women don't look nice in those
things,"
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